Public Access To Criminal Records

Public Access to Criminal Records

Even with many of the states offering online public access to criminal records, the idea is still a
hot debate topic for Pennsylvanians. In 2004, a group of state employees has been meeting for
months quietly and behind closed doors. The issue is deciding whether or not online public
access to criminal records ought to be adopted to make Pennsylvania criminal court information
readily available to state citizens.

The state has introduced a computerized public access case-management system and database
of criminal records and criminal court information. However, this new system has no
accompanying policy on public information. Now, the Public Access Ad Hoc Committee, members
of the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, is meeting to determine what that policy
would be and how it would affect access to criminal records.

A spokesman for the AOPC indicated that it was likely that not all public information are going to
be available for public access in the criminal records database. Once a policy is approved, certain
public records will continue to be withheld from an online database of criminal court information
and criminal records.

"Our inclination in Pennsylvania is to go slow," said Art Heinz, spokesman for the AOPC. "The
real concern is identity theft. There's a difference between maintaining public access to files at a
courthouse and publishing them on the Internet."

In December of the year prior to that, the AOPC let out what is intended to become a statewide
database of criminal court information and criminal records available for public access. However,
installation of the system was halted when 20 of the state's 60 judicial districts denied approval of
its use in March. The denial was spurred on after users, ranging from judges to docketing clerks,
filed several thousand complaints about the system. As of last month, the help line of the AOPC
had received more than 13,000 individual calls about the Common Pleas Case Management
System.

The system set off at a rocky start and court officials are ready to admit this. Throughout the
process, public access criminal records were on a tight rein. Information identifying specific
criminal defendants and convicts has been tightly restricted. For instance, information like a
convicted criminal's age and street address - details that help to distinguish between two people
with the same name - are not included in the online public access criminal records database.
This is only one of the minor flaws that many a critic has pointed out about the system.

Today, the system now includes public access to address and date of birth in criminal records.
However, access is only limited to judges, probation officers, and other court employees. Some
critics maintain that online public access to criminal records is of questionable worth. They say
that it could lead to confusion about an individual's identity as records are not complete, thus
leading to several false negatives. A person who has never been charged with an offense may be
depicted as having an arrest or conviction record due to the fact somebody with the same name
has one.

"By doing things this way, they're putting a lot more people under suspicion," said David
Patterson, clerk of courts for Westmoreland County.